Lydia

Lydia, you are one! I've done my best to somehow make time stand still but I can't and here you are, one year old!  As you will learn over the years, it is my custom to write a letter to each of you girls on your birthday and so here is your first letter from Mummy.

It has been quite a year, from the dramatic entrance you made to the world right up until today you are always making sure that your presence is known and that even though you are a third baby you are not willing to be forgotten. You might be small but you are mighty, it might have been you that Shakespeare was talking about when he wrote the line in A midsummer night's dream "And though she be but little, she is fierce." You are an ever present feature in our family now, I saw a photo a few days ago from just before you were born, it took me a long time of studying to work out what was "wrong" with it, it was just that you were not there!

I shall take this brief moment to take the opportunity to thank you for looking a bit like me! You look so like me that even I can tell you do and I am normally rubbish at seeing family resemblances. Thank you for teaching me to love the way I look a bit by looking so much like me and being *beautiful*. You are truly stunning, a truly beautiful human being both in terms of your looks but also your character.  Your default setting is one of joy. You are happy to be here, happy to be alive, happy to be joining in, happy to be part of the gang and we are so happy to have you here.

Just now your main passion is learning to move, to walk, to climb, to get over there (there normally being wherever your sisters are).  You are so close to walking, I'm sure it will happen any day now.  That said, I told people weeks ago I would be surprised if you weren't walking by your first birthday and you have shown me wrong. You like to try and make me look like I am making things up though, never showing off a skill or character trait if I try and get you to show others.  You also like to wait till you are sure you are able to complete a task before you try it, I am sure the day you finally walk will be the day you run across the room.

You are an anomaly to all that know you when it comes to eating, you can eat and eat and eat and eat, and yet at 12 months old are still wearing mostly 6-9 month clothes. I have no idea where you put all this food if you don't use it to grow, it makes you very happy though. Little makes you more visibly happy than being told it is a meal time of some description.

You love to dance, and to bounce. You love going on our little trampoline, you love to dance, bobbing up and down. You love to clap to the music and sometimes even try and sing along too.

You definitely love to join in with your big sisters, you want to be like them and do whatever they are doing and put up with a lot of being pushed/pulled around and squashed just to be able to be part of the action.  You are definitely one of them and I can't think how much mischief you will all be getting up to once you are probably only a tiny bit bigger.

If life were completely down to you, you would live in the bath. You *love* the bath. On the nights we don't do one we can tell you are less than impressed and from a really young age the bath was always something that helped settle you down if you were sad. In fact along with the sound of the electric toothbrush the bath was one of only two things that helped you feel better during the colic months!

One thing you are definitely not so keen on is sleep, why sleep when you can see Mummy several times a night!?! I love you baby, I really do, but I'll find it easier to show you this if you could let me get some rest! Maybe this can be the next thing you work on, right?

Lydia, you are an utter joy to parent, a true blessing to have in our family. Thank you for helping us find simple pleasures in being alive for teaching us to find joy in every situation.

My prayer for you is that you would maintain your sense of joy, that life won't beat you down and that you will continue in your masterful skill of brightening up a room just by being in it! I pray that you will grow into a woman of God who will be a warrior for Him, that though you be but little you will be fierce. Oh my special Lydia, I pray that you will grow to know Jesus, love Jesus and fight for the things Jesus loves.

Thank you for being in my life, my beautiful, joyous, special little girl.

Watch out

she's coming to get you!!!

I'm not ready!

Walking

This story is really from a couple of weeks ago: many of you know it now but it felt worth recording. I've "humorously" added drama by using the style of a film noir narrator.

8am Tuesday. I've just come out of the shower.  Naomi has been having a lie in,  something that occurs once a week or so. There is a shout from her room and she comes hobbling out. I figure she's bumped her leg on the bed in the dark. I help her to the toilet and when I put her on the floor she falls and needs carried downstairs.

9am Toosday. It seems serious. Naomi is *very* sad.

10am. Naomi is lying on the sofa watching TV, still unable to walk.

11am. It's gymnastics day. Naomi really likes this.  So she asks to go and Jay gives it a try. After 5 mins the people running it come for Jay: Naomi can't even stand up to take part.

11:30am. A visit to the minor injuries clinic is in order, but no dice. One for the hospital they say. Very sad, they return home.

1pm. Naomi misses nursery. 

Wednesday. AM. It's all the same. Clouds of darkness consume the household.

Wednesday. PM. Still no nursery. Even the possibility of missing her best friend isn't enough to convince her to go.

Thursday. Go to hospital for an x-ray. Nothing. An appointment is arranged for Monday in case it's still the same.

Friday. AM. Toddler group has cake. Naomi likes cake. Cake is at other end of room. Naomi walks to cake and eats it. Injury resumes. We feel like schmucks, but what to do?

Friday. PM. She's managing to hobble or hop most places. We grow concerned that whatever was wrong is now gone and that it's psychological. This may be hard to shift, and all the while, the leg isn't getting used and it'll be getting weaker.

Friday. PM. In car to grandparents house. We agree on a carrot approach. If Naomi can try to walk, and succeeds, we'll take her to SOFT PLAY. Besides, maybe having her cousins around will help her.

Saturday. Despite children to play with and the carrot, Naomi continues hopping. This is bad.

Saturday. PM. Three cars full of Brownlees arrive at resaurant and walk towards the place. I tell Naomi that I won't carry her until she tries to walk. She does, and succeeds. "I CAN WALK" she says.

+10mins. Naomi learns the ancient art of Karate.

Sunday. It's like nothing happened, though her leg is obviously a bit weak. Go figure.

So what happened? Maybe she had a cramp or something. Maybe it was an injury sustained while bootlegging. Maybe she was playing us for suckers (I doubt it, she looked in real pain). Maybe (likely) something else. 

Thanks to everyone for bearing with us.

Monday, week following. We went to soft play.

She's a walker!

Miriam has had the longest nearly walking phase I've ever known, she looked pretty close about 6 weeks ago but she has now mastered the basics and is now trying to perfect the art.

So here goes, enjoy!

Another Weekend Away

As you can read here and here the Brownlee family are now well and truly in the habit of going on our Church's weekend away.  We are now just back from our third one and thought we'd share some of our goings on and a few fun photos we took along the way.

This year the weekend away was in a new venue.  Not far from Loughborough we were staying in the Whitemoor Lakes Activity Centre, it's a newish place and everything was under one roof and it was even catered.

Unlike previous years, Naomi was now sleeping in a bed! I was slightly concerned when we walked in to see that there was a bunk bed (and therefore ladder) but Naomi was incredible and didn't try (too hard) to climb up it and did a very good job at bed and nap times for not getting out of bed.

Trying out the bed

Naomi really enjoyed the food that was on offer, especially all the puddings she had on offer as we don't eat pudding all that often at home.  Here you can see her complete joy at being allowed a donut!

In previous years there has been a walk organised and Naomi and Sandy have gone both years (although I didn't go the first year as I had just had a baby!!).  Unfortunately this year there wasn't really a good place to go out that wasn't unsafe (we were right next to a very big lake) but Sandy and I took the girls out for a little fresh air.

Naomi having a look at some climbing equipment belonging to the centre

This was the view from our room, it lets you see the edge of the lake and also some climbing towers and canoes

Feeling slightly childish I found myself being quite concerned by this notice next to the toilet, where should we put our wee, or indeed anything else for that matter...

We were there, of course, for the teaching and the worship time and although we had to miss quite a lot because of various childcare requirements we both managed to hear some teaching on "coming of age" (our church is 20 years old this year) and we each managed to get some time to worship God without Naomi as she was having an absolute blast in the creche, playing and exploring how God can heal and help us feel better.  She loved the creche a lot and spent much of the time asking to go to "creshhhhhh".

We all came home tired but very happy and glad to have spent time with our friends and with God.

Finally we have some pictures of Miriam for you.  She seems to have decided that after a weekend of being held a lot and sat on people's knees a lot she should be able to sit up all the time.  This means that after sitting her in the bouncy chair for as little as a couple of minutes she started doing this...

This isn't a massively safe situation so we decided it was time to break out the bumbo (the timing of this is incredible as we had loaned it to someone and had only got it back yesterday!)

It was quite tiring for her but she seemed to like it a lot.

Chesterfield

My parents came down a couple of weeks ago to look after Naomi, so Jay and I could have a bit of a break before the new baby comes. This was the longest Jay had been away from her (2 nights!) and was pretty hard, but the weekend was very nice.

We got a very good deal on a room in Chesterfield, you can see the squint church spire right out of our window...

The room was very warm given the time of year :( Fortunately the place had a pool and jacuzzi which were much appreciated.

Naturally we went for a short walk in the Peaks, and on the advice of my supervisor Jon we did a lovely walk that lasted about an hour and a half, concluding with one of the very English pubs that seem to cover this part of the world.

View from pub. Note hot air balloon.

All in all a very enjoyable weekend. Grandma and Granddad had a nice time with Naomi (who enjoyed having more people to show off to), and they were here for over a week in total. Most fun.

Anniversary

Last Thursday was Sandy and I's wedding anniversary.  It is now nine years since we walked down the aisle together and life is very good!

To celebrate we got ourselves a babysitter (thanks Auntie Liz, who also did the previous night so we could go to cell group) and went out for dinner.  We decided to be a little bit extravagant and so went to a local Australian restaurant called Moomba.  It is all about Kangaroo steaks and wild boar sausages, it was some delicious food!

This was our wild boar sausage and Kangaroo steak, we got one each and then shared it between us so we could taste more stuff.  The steak tasted a bit like beef but less strong, it may have been the most tender steak I have ever eaten in my life, though!  We only had one steak knife between us (because technically only one of us ordered steak) but my normal dinner knife didn't struggle in the slightest!

 In the background here you can see the massive mural thing that was on the wall.  Beware of kangaroos for the next 20km!!

Finally we have a picture of Sandy, if you look hard on the right of the picture you might see Paul Hogan in the background, the actor from Crocodile Dundee - "Call that a knife? This is a knife!".  Another part of the restaurant had a similar photo of a young Rolf Harris, very entertaining.

After dinner Sandy and I went for a walk, we used to do this quite often pre-children and if we are honest it is one of the few things we miss about our "old" lives so we grabbed the babysitter opportunity.  Unfortunately my pregnant body couldn't do too far but it was still nice to do something so simple but usually so hard! We could even hold hands as neither of us had to push a buggy!

So, that was Sandy and I but I am sure you'd love to see a picture of Naomi, so here is a post dinner face that you can't help but love!

I think you have a touch of yoghurt just next to your.... You know what? Never mind!

Energy

Today we have bags of energy...

Brownlees

The final leg of our Scottish tour was a few days with my parents and my brother Ian in New Deer. We had a restful few days and it was good to see my family again, including a first meeting of my brother's fiancée Christine.

We open with Naomi showing everyone how to wear oven gloves. For some reason she really liked them!

While Naomi was still in utero, we decided it would be nice if she climbed a Scottish mountain, so we went for a hike up Bennachie, a small mountain that dominates the horizon of  North East Scotland (partly because everthing coastwards is fairly flat, and partly because it's got a distinctive twin-peaked shape). It's also very close to where Jay's parents live. We decided that Anonymous Brownlee might like to have the same experience, so we went for a similar walk again. We didn't have a chance to do it from Keig (Jay's folks), so we took the Brownlees on the trip instead. This time, of course, we had a toddler to take on the climb too, and we'd forgotten to take our backpack - fortunately our good friends the Gregorys (who have many children) no longer needed theirs and gave it to us for the trip. Here's Naomi and me enjoying the first part of the climb.

Naomi taking her first mountain steps...

Unfortunately we didn't make it to the top this time - Naomi got a little tired of the whole exercise about two thirds of the way up - but we still got a good view and had a nice day out.

You'll maybe remember that one of Naomi's first words was "Duck". My brother has a very large collection of Lego and Duplo bricks (I'm jealous!), and here's a duck I made for her.

Here's what's left a few minutes later.

New Deer sits on the side of Culsh Hill, at the top of which is a granite monument to one of the area's long-serving MPs. We went for a walk up the village with a stop off there; there's quite a good view from the top but unfortunately we were greeted with a sign telling us that it was locked and the key could be obtained from a shop at the bottom of the hill (which we'd walked right past). On the way back, my Dad got attacked by flies, and started waves his hands about. Naomi thought this was hilarious, and even now we've returned to Loughborough, whenever she sees a fly she starts waving madly!

Naomi had fun playing with the many outdoor toys my parents have stowed away, including a trike which my nieces Kirsty and Ashley used to have:

a sandpit bought for my niece ad nephew (Holly and Steven):

and a little red car which I used to play with...

Travelling meant many opportunities to use grown up things! Here's a big girl drinking out of a big girl glass.

Finally, a bit more walking, this time along the old railway line at Maud (village a couple of miles from New Deer). My Mum started doing some silly walks which Naomi just loved to copy!

Christine, Ian, my Mum, Naomi, and my Dad

I quite liked this somewhat arty shot of Naomi in front of the old platforms at Maud. Left for Fraserburgh, right for Peterhead! The "rails just lifted look" here is one of the things that first got me interested in old railway lines.

So, that's our Scottish adventure for the summer. We packed a lot in to just two weeks, and came back feeling pretty tired still! Naomi was very excited to be in her own house again (and not in a car any more), and we had a whole day to settle before a quick trip down to London. More on that soon (still catching up on blogging things!)

Somewhat time-critical - for those of you who pray, please pray for our housing situation. We're moving to a bigger house to accommodate the new child; this will stretch our budget a lot, and we're finding it difficult to get a place that matches our needs and wants. We think we have somewhere we can make work, but there's a number of the usual hurdles to pass, and all the while someone else could bag it ahead of us. Also pray that our landlords Rich and Caroline - who are just great - are able to find someone to quickly take our place.

Bubbles

Some weeks ago now we were near the end of a bubble-bath bottle, and opted for a bumper load of bubbles so the bottle could be cleaned out completely. Naomi seems to find bubble fascinating!

In the past month or so, she's also got in to shoes in a big way. Taking off her one ones seems quite fun (resulting in a couple of near-misses with losing them), but even better is putting on someone else's shoes.  Mummy's slipper boots are quite good for this, but pretty much anything will do. She's developed something of an affinity for putting rings (such as the big plastic ones for her bathtime hippos) on her legs and arms too, being quite happy to sit for the whole of bathtime with those things on.

Anyway, here she is with my shoes - she can even take a few steps in them before falling over...

Sunny Days!

Recently I did a post telling you about the kinds of things that Naomi and I get up to on rainy days but by far our favourite days are where we are able to get out and about.  We've had a really good run of good days recently (although not so much this week) so I thought you'd like to see some photos I've taken of Naomi while we've been out on our various walks and trips.

This day we went to the park which has a large area of sand which is good for digging and walking around (it also has a slide in it which is increasingly Naomi's favourite thing to play on).  At the time Naomi didn't own a bucket or spade but some other boys and girls were happy to share theirs, so here Naomi does lots of digging and patting of sand, she was having a blast!

Naomi just loves walking around, so we went for a walk to a wee play area near the house, we don't go there very often as it technically belongs to some houses that all pay for it's upkeep, but sometimes we go for a cheeky wee play as it rarely seems to get used.  This day Naomi seemed to discover she had a shadow and we spent about 5 minutes just chasing our shadows, I wish you could have seen the way she was flapping her arms and being fascinated that when she did something her shadow did the same!

We wondered a bit further later on but when we got to a place where it was safe I let Naomi out the buggy to have a bit of a wander.  Great fun was had by pushing on the nappy bag which was hanging on the back of the buggy, this was the day we discovered that even though we are small we are able to make the buggy go places!

Another recent discovery is kicking/running after a ball, great fun to be had.  I'm particularly fond of this game as it can be played in our back garden so it doesn't need to be a huge expedition!

Finally, if all else fails, we can have a snack in the sun

Thanks for reading!

Walking

It's been a long time coming (since before Christmas), but after a month of furniture surfing ("cruising"), Naomi has pretty much figured out walking! Here she is a couple of days ago:

Since then she's been getting a bit more stable and ambitious, and is now trying to walk whenever she can. The only issue now is getting up to standing without something to lean on.

We're also having a lot of fun helping her learn how to feed herself. I can sense this picture being dug out in a few years' time :)

Finally, here she is looking quite grown up with mummy's bag...

Babyproofing!

Naomi is getting more and more mobile these days, she is quite the adventurer too, getting into everything by climbing, crawling, standing, crying till you pick her up, whatever seems to work best at the time! And so the babyproofing commences!

All over our house you will now find those things for plugs that stop little fingers from mixing with electricity and we have a fair few of those rubbery things you stick on corners (corner cushions as my good friend Sarah called them, what exactly is different about a cushion for a corner? I was thinking for at least 5 minutes one day!) and we also now have a stair gate.

Ironically the stair gate isn't on the stairs, the layout of the house and positioning of doors is such that we don't need any there but we have now put one between the kitchen and the rest of the house. It was deemed necessary after Naomi pulled a casserole dish onto herself and it broke!

The thing is, she quite likes the stair gate, it is good for helping one stand up and it is good for climbing on, I'm sure she would consider it good for swinging on too, but thankfully she is unable to open it!

Here she is using the gate for standing purposes

Apparently it is good to be able to see Mummy even if we can't quite get to her!

Don't worry though, I'll work out how to get through this thing!